1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a voice-activated remote control unit which is adapted for use with one or more electrical apparatuses, such as a TV set, a DVD player, a stereo system, an air conditioner, for the purpose of allowing the user to remotely turn on/off and control the operations of these electrical apparatuses through voice-activation.
2. Description of Related Art
Most household electrical apparatuses, such as TV sets, DVD players, stereo systems, and air conditioners, are included with remote control means, such as an IR (infrared) remote controller, that allows the user to remotely turn on/off and control the operations of these electrical apparatuses.
One drawback to the conventional IR remote controllers, however, is that the user is nevertheless required to manually press control buttons provided on the panel. In addition, since many remote control functions require the user to repeatedly press the control buttons to execute. Therefore, the use of conventional remote controllers is quite laborious and inconvenient.
For a combined system of two or more electrical apparatuses, such as a combined system of a TV set and a DVD player, since these two electrical apparatuses each have their own dedicated remote controllers, it would be inconvenient for the user to use one remote controller to turn on the TV set and then the other remote controller to turn on the DVD player.
There are presently some types of voice-activated remote control devices available on the market that allow the user to remotely control the operations of TV or stereo systems through voice activation. One drawback to these voice-activated remote control devices, however, is that it would substantially become inoperable during the broadcast of TV or stereo programs since the broadcast sounds would make the voice recognition nearly impossible.
It is therefore an objective of this invention to provide a voice-activated remote control unit which allows the user to remotely turn on/off and control the operations of one or more electrical apparatuses through voice-activation without having to manually press buttons.
It is another objective of this invention to provide a voice-activated remote control unit which allows the user to remotely control the operations of two or more electrical apparatuses concurrently.
In accordance with the foregoing and other objectives, the invention proposes a voice-activated remote control unit.
Broadly recited, the voice-activated remote control unit of the invention comprises: (a) a microphone for picking up the user""s voice command and converting the voice command into an analog voice signal; (b) a voice signal conversion unit for converting the output analog voice signal from the microphone into a digital voice signal, (c) a command code database for storing a predefined set of remote-control command codes and corresponding voice commands; (d) a voice recognition unit, which is capable of performing a voice recognition algorithm on the output digital voice signal from the voice signal conversion unit to thereby recognize the user""s voice command, and which is further capable of retrieving the corresponding remote-control command code from the command code database; and (e) a wireless signal emitter, which is capable of modulating the retrieved remote-control command code from the command code database into a wireless signal and emitting the wireless signal to the electrical apparatuses to cause one or more of the electrical apparatuses to operate accordingly.
The voice-activated remote control devices of the invention is characterized by that it allows the user to turn on/off and control the operations of various types of electrical apparatuses entirely through voice activation without having to use hands.
Moreover, it is another characteristic feature of the invention that it includes an initial mute function that can set all the sound-reproduction functions of the electrical apparatuses being controlled temporarily to the mute mode at the start of the voice control, for the purpose of allowing an uninterfered reception of the user""s voice command voice to make the voice recognition more accurately.